Rheinmetall Hands Over First Lynx IFV to Hungary

Rheinmetall handed over the first of a total of 209 Lynx infantry fighting vehicles to the Hungarian Defence Forces (HDF) on October 15, the company announced Monday.

In September 2020 the Hungarian Ministry of Defence has awarded Rheinmetall an order to supply infantry fighting vehicles and related products and services with a total value of more than €2 billion. The holistic delivery package includes ammunition and logistics, as well as nine modern Buffalo armoured recovery vehicles, nine armoured vehicle launched bridges (AVLB) and 16 trucks. Hungary is the first NATO and EU member nation to receive Rheinmetall’s newly developed Lynx modular medium weight combat system.

The Lynx KF41 for the HDF is delivered in seven variants including standard infantry fighting vehicles (IFV), command post, reconnaissance, joint fire observer, mortar carrier, field ambulance vehicles and driver training vehicles. The contract also includes additional Rheinmetall products and services such as simulators, training and instruction, plus an initial supply of spare parts as well as maintenance support.

The Lynx IFV is equipped with a manned 30mm Lance turret, as well as the integrated active protection system StrikeShield. The Lance turret operates enhanced sensor systems to exploit the capabilities of the integrated 30mm firing next generation programmable kinetic energy time fused (KETF) ammunition and the modern Spike 2 LR anti-tank missile system.

A first batch of 46 Lynx vehicles will be delivered from Rheinmetall’s plants in Germany. By end of next year, Rheinmetall will start to deliver the remaining vehicles from their Hungarian plant. To this end, the Hungarian government and Rheinmetall agreed in August 2020 to establish a joint venture responsible for creating a Lynx production facility in Hungary. The production facility for the  combat vehicle is currently being built in Zalaegerszeg as part of the ZALAZone industry complex.